Ghosts in the Forest
Sometimes I forget how little I knew about trees before I started to work at camp. I've always had a deep connection with and love for trees, but that love only increased when I learned more about them.
One of my favorite trees in the winter are actually beech trees. They're generally smaller trees, they aren't canopy trees at all. However, they're very easy to spot because they don't drop their leaves until spring, when new buds form and new leaves sprout. The color leaches out of the leaves and they become papery thin, but they hang in there all winter. It's a striking sight, to look out in the forest and see these bursts of orangeish-tan leaves in a sea of mottled brown, gray, and green. It's even more beautiful when it snows, when the beech leaves almost seem to glow against the white.
I often think about these beech trees as ghost trees. As darkness falls, or as the sun rises, beech trees in the winter can almost look like a photo negative of "real" trees. Where we think of trees with deep green leaves and furrowed, dark brown trunks, beech trees are pale with smooth trunks and branches.
Spring is always a beautiful time of year, but I get a tiny pang of sadness that I won't be able to see the ghost trees again until the fall. If you can, I absolutely endorse going to find a beech tree before it gets too warm. And feel free to give it a hug from me, just because.
One of my favorite trees in the winter are actually beech trees. They're generally smaller trees, they aren't canopy trees at all. However, they're very easy to spot because they don't drop their leaves until spring, when new buds form and new leaves sprout. The color leaches out of the leaves and they become papery thin, but they hang in there all winter. It's a striking sight, to look out in the forest and see these bursts of orangeish-tan leaves in a sea of mottled brown, gray, and green. It's even more beautiful when it snows, when the beech leaves almost seem to glow against the white.
I often think about these beech trees as ghost trees. As darkness falls, or as the sun rises, beech trees in the winter can almost look like a photo negative of "real" trees. Where we think of trees with deep green leaves and furrowed, dark brown trunks, beech trees are pale with smooth trunks and branches.
Spring is always a beautiful time of year, but I get a tiny pang of sadness that I won't be able to see the ghost trees again until the fall. If you can, I absolutely endorse going to find a beech tree before it gets too warm. And feel free to give it a hug from me, just because.
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